★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
What do you get when you cross the whimsy of animation with the bizarreness of an indie darling? Miranda July’s Kajillionaire. Her first film in a decade, Kajillionaire is the eccentric story of a family of petty criminals that seek to pull off the ultimate heist: a lost luggage insurance fraud claim that will allow them to pay the overdue rent on their apartment-slash-abandoned-office-building-slash-soap-factory-runoff. The story is lead by Old Dolio (Evan Rachel Wood), the 26 year-old emotionally stunted daughter of the bunch that has never received so much as a hug or encouraging word from either of her parents. Just as thrifty with money as they are with love, the family lives on the fringes of society and supplements their lifestyle through random acts like stealing from P.O. boxes and robbing senior citizens. It’s a depressing life that proves sometimes the efforts that go into avoiding the world are more strenuous and exhausting than it could ever possibly be worth.
Along the way, the family encounters Melanie (Gina Rodriguez), a much more level-headed woman who is entranced by their strange way of life. It’s never clear why she chooses to stick with them for so long — nor why she pseudo-adopts Old Dolio after her family abandons her — but her starry-eyed way of viewing life as an adventure is infectious and a fresh balance against the oddities that make up the rest of the cast. Rodriguez is an incredibly talented actor that brings life to every scene she’s in and it’s impossible not to latch on to her lone ship in the sea of strangeness that is Kajillionaire.
Image via Vulture
Despite having such a strong focus on the absurd, Kajillionaire is not without its heartfelt moments. One scene in particular finds the main cast attempting to rob a dying old man who requests that they play piano, clink silverware on dishes, and pretend to be his family while he passes away in the next room. The heartbreaking realization that he is so strongly yearning for the past in the final moments of his life is perhaps one of the saddest scenes in any movie we’ve ever seen. It proves that despite having a preference for fun, Miranda July is more than capable of delivering strong emotional beats.
Kajillionaire is definitely odd and at times slow-paced but it’s never to the detriment of the characters or story. Not everyone will like this movie but that’s kind of the point of it. July has a quiet kind of confidence that only makes us more excited to see what else she can bring to the big screen. Hopefully the gap between Kajillionaire and her next film won’t be quite so long!